The Legal Ballers Association is highly organized, ultra-competitive and centered around a court. It even has its own six-page long constitution.
In other words, it’s everything you’d expect a University Law School student group to be.
But if you want to pass the bar here, forget your suit and briefcase.
Sneakers and shorts, please.
The Legal Ballers Association, known as LBA, was founded nearly four years ago by new law student Jumane Redway to get groups of basketball-loving law students together for some friendly competition away from the classroom. Now, after earning his law degree and nearing the completion of his master’s in business administration, he’s seen his small group of early morning basketball enthusiasts grow to be the largest student organization at the school.
As law students start classes today, the group’s fourth season is anticipated to be its most popular ever, something its founder and current commissioners are giddy over.
“We are the largest law school organization,” Redway said, “and we are thriving.”
It’s easily turned into the most popular court date in town. Even its 7 a.m. starting time – four days a week – didn’t drive away interest.
“Basketball is a very important part of my life,” Redway said. “For graduate students especially, our time is very schizophrenic. We don’t have much time at all and so at the same time there’s definitely a desire and a demand to have structured activities, and that was really the beginning why I started the league.”
Even for a law school student group, the LBA’s attention to minute details and complete emulation of the NBA’s operating model is nearly obscene.
Among other things, its constitution outlines its “powers and duties,” “methods of selection, qualifications and terms of office” and “powers and duties,” that explain its finer points, which includes a draft in September and an all-star game in February.
Did we mention it has ministries of finance, publicity and charitable works?
“We are law students,” commissioner Ben Seidman said. “We like making things as complicated as they can be.”
At its core, however, is pure basketball.
The association is divided into two leagues, Criminal and Civil – did you expect anything else? – each with six teams with rosters of seven players. Six teams play on Mondays and Wednesdays and the other six play on Tuesdays and Thursdays. The 30-minute games are played at 7 and 7:40 a.m. at the Student Recreation Center four mornings of the week, and the whole show ends by 8:30 at the latest, Redway said, just in time to start it again the next day.
Women are highly encouraged to play in the league, which has seen its female participation rate increase each season, when the league started with six teams.
This year, Seidman and co-commissioner Briana Renzetti will hold tryouts in mid-September for first-year law students prior to its draft, where prospective players and coaches can observe the upcoming class’ talent.
When the draft rolls around, players must fill out a “scouting report” of themselves that coaches will use to make their picks with. Seidman hopes to make all-stars from last season become coaches this year to evenly distribute the talent. Seidman also expects to add more teams to the field to meet with demand.
There’s no talk yet of whether it will play another rivalry game against a similar group from Lewis & Clark College’s School of Law for charity, like it did last year for victims of Hurricane Katrina.
Even with a table at the law school’s open house on Friday, Seidman knows quality of basketball on the court will drive popularity, rather than word of mouth. The effect of last year’s annual pre-Spring Break playoffs – even off the court – was evidence of that.
“It was all anybody would talk about at school, no joke,” Seidman said.
“There are even people who don’t play but know everything about the league,” added Redway.
It has more than succeeded in fulfilling the third point in the constitution’s second article, titled “Purposes,” which states that it was formed to, “foster and strengthen alliances between UO Law Students through the sport of basketball.”
“You see the same people everyday going in or out, and you don’t really see a lot of the law school students outside of school, so it’s nice to get together with those people,” Seidman said.
Which gives the phrase “I’ll see you in court” a whole new meaning.
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